AustLit
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'HERE are forty texts to read at some stage in your life: forty texts that can enrich you in all manner of ways. Some are recent, like Harry Potter; some ancient, like Homer and Lao Tzu. There are memoirs (Nelson Mandela), poetry (Les Murray) and many of the world’s great novels, from George Eliot’s Middlemarch to Toni Morrison’s Beloved.
'Our guide, in entertaining short essays about personal encounters with each of these works, is Michael McGirr: schoolteacher and former priest, reviewer of hundreds of novels and lifelong lover of literature. His humour and insight shine through in stories that connect the texts he has selected with each other, and connect us to them.
'Never prescriptive, and often very funny, this book is an invitation to reflect on—and share with others—the extraordinary gift of reading. ‘It is a gift that is taking me a lifetime to unwrap,’ McGirr writes. ‘The excitement has never worn off.''.
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
Will the Real Subject Please Stand Up? Autobiographical Voices in Biography
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Life Writing , vol. 18 no. 1 2021; (p. 25-30)'Biographers exist in a tight partnership with their chosen subject and there is often during the research and writing an equivalent reflective personal journey for the biographer. This is generally obscured, buried among an overwhelming magnitude of sources while the biographer is simultaneously developing the all-important ‘relationship’ required to sustain the narrative journey ahead. Questions and selections beset the biographer, usually about access to, or veracity of, sources but perhaps there are more personal questions that could be put to the biographer. The many works on the craft of biography or collections about the life-writing journey tell only some of this tale. It is not often enough, however, that we acknowledge how biography can be unusually ‘double-voiced’ in communicating a strong sense of the teller in the tale: the biographer’s own life experience usually does lead them to the biography, but also influences the shaping of the work. These are still ‘tales of craft’ in one sense, but autobiographical reflections in another. Perhaps this very personal insight can only be attempted in the ‘afterlife’ of biography; the quiet moments and years that follow such consuming works. In this article, I reflect on this unusually emotional form of life writing.' (Publication abstract)
-
[Review] Books That Saved My Life : Reading for Wisdom, Solace and Pleasure
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Biblionews and Australian Notes & Queries , March no. 401 2019; (p. 42)
— Review of Books That Saved My Life : Reading for Wisdom, Solace and Pleasure 2018 selected work essay -
Stories That Can Save Your Life
2018
single work
column
— Appears in: Eureka Street , 21 October vol. 28 no. 21 2018;'Teachers periodically express concern about the future of school libraries. Most attention is focused on underfunding and on the importance of libraries for the retrieval of information. Deeper questions about reading are often left undiscussed: Why should children be encouraged to read? What should they read? And how should they read?' (Introduction)
-
[Review] Books That Saved My Life : Reading for Wisdom, Solace and Pleasure
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Biblionews and Australian Notes & Queries , March no. 401 2019; (p. 42)
— Review of Books That Saved My Life : Reading for Wisdom, Solace and Pleasure 2018 selected work essay -
Stories That Can Save Your Life
2018
single work
column
— Appears in: Eureka Street , 21 October vol. 28 no. 21 2018;'Teachers periodically express concern about the future of school libraries. Most attention is focused on underfunding and on the importance of libraries for the retrieval of information. Deeper questions about reading are often left undiscussed: Why should children be encouraged to read? What should they read? And how should they read?' (Introduction)
-
Will the Real Subject Please Stand Up? Autobiographical Voices in Biography
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Life Writing , vol. 18 no. 1 2021; (p. 25-30)'Biographers exist in a tight partnership with their chosen subject and there is often during the research and writing an equivalent reflective personal journey for the biographer. This is generally obscured, buried among an overwhelming magnitude of sources while the biographer is simultaneously developing the all-important ‘relationship’ required to sustain the narrative journey ahead. Questions and selections beset the biographer, usually about access to, or veracity of, sources but perhaps there are more personal questions that could be put to the biographer. The many works on the craft of biography or collections about the life-writing journey tell only some of this tale. It is not often enough, however, that we acknowledge how biography can be unusually ‘double-voiced’ in communicating a strong sense of the teller in the tale: the biographer’s own life experience usually does lead them to the biography, but also influences the shaping of the work. These are still ‘tales of craft’ in one sense, but autobiographical reflections in another. Perhaps this very personal insight can only be attempted in the ‘afterlife’ of biography; the quiet moments and years that follow such consuming works. In this article, I reflect on this unusually emotional form of life writing.' (Publication abstract)